Event details
The objective of the seminar is to increase the institutional capacity of patent offices in African countries to effectively use the flexibilities of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) to protect public health.
The goal is to ensure that the patent system is supportive of public health goals and innovation while avoiding creating unnecessary barriers to access to affordable quality medicines, diagnostics, and vaccines. Leeway to define how to apply the criteria for the substantive examination of pharmaceutical patents is an important flexibility under the WTO TRIPS Agreement to promote generic competition and protect public health.
The seminar will build capacities for patent examiners on substantive examination of pharmaceutical patent applications, and foster dialogue among patent authorities and examiners to share experiences and discuss policy options.
A first seminar on this subject was held in December 2019 in Cape Town, South Africa. This second seminar responds to the demand for increased institutional capacity building in the area of patent law and public health in the African region, as well as growing concerns of the proliferation of patents that protect minor, or obvious, variants of existing products or manufacturing processes.
- Programme Africa Regional Training (Cairo, 2023)
- Presentation of the South Centre - Germán Velásquez (27 Nov)
- IP and Access to Medicines - Germán Velásquez (27 Nov)
- Normative Context - Nirmalya Syam (27 Nov)
- Validation Agreements - Nirmalya Syam (27 Nov)
- Patentability Criteria - Nirmalya Syam (27 Nov)
- Pharmaceutical Patent Claims - Nirmalya Syam (28 Nov)
- Pharmaceutical Patents Guidelines 2016
- South Centre Research Paper No.52: Tackling the Proliferation of Patents
- South Centre Research Paper No. 64: Implementing Pro-competitive criteria for examination of pharmaceutical patents
- South Centre Research Paper No.58: Patent examination and legal fictions
- South Centre policy Brief No.59: The "obvious to try" method of addressing strategic patenting
- South Centre Research Paper No.153: Patent analysis for medicines and biotherapeutics in trials to treat COVID-19